Sophomore
by BraveChicken
Summary: When a mysterious laser blast hits Lance mid-battle, Team Voltron must figure out how to help Lance as he is thrust into yet another war. This time, expanding beyond and through time itself.
1. Chapter 1

Sophomore. In a string of garbled etymology, sophomore quite literally means "arguer." Which is fun, since many argue- in a similarly dull etymological sort of way- that it is the combination of "wise" and "foolish." Either way you swing on the grammatical pendulum of the supposedly patchy english language, sophomore is, at its roots, paradoxical.

"Lance, watch out!"

The desperate phrase was shouted too late for anything but an easy conscience. Just as the brunette turned, gun held firmly, his sharp gaze piercing through his bayard's sights- the laser had struck it's target.

His scream pierced through the battlefield at a sharp-enough tone to cause a sort of hiccup for those closest.

Keith will reflect on his flinch in the late hours of certain nights when sleep is most desired but least companionable to his traumatized thoughts. He'll consider it an act of weakness or betrayal, to look away from a fellow soldier in such pain. Similarly, he'll consider it a natural response. He'll choose, however hesitantly, to settle on listening to the little voice that argues the entire scenario to be unimportant in the first place in favor of what happened next.

Because it wasn't just a weapon. It was the conception of a paradox.

* * *

Amethyst eyes snap open, blinking rapidly in the hope to refocus on the task at hand.

Keith was exhausted. After receiving intel of a new weapon of mass destruction on a planet of great resource and even greater oppression via the Galra Empire, Team Voltron had developed a hasty plan to liberate both the weapon and the planet. They had expected many things, however, a seven hour battle was not one of them.

Having a paladin injured at the sixth hour was the breaking point. Shiro had ordered a retreat after Lance's body went limp from the laser blast.

He's been unconscious ever since.

As it turns out, the downside to having brightly colored lions as your ship is their distinction. That is to say that in the vacuum of space there were far too many Galra to clean up. A simple retreat was impossible due to the sheer magnitude of ships in the way and Keith was desperate for a miracle.

"Shiro, what's the plan? We can't get out of here without forming Voltron and Lance is-"

Keith was cut off by an agonizing screech; his lion wavering in it's evasion- the consequential rattling of the cockpit turning into a startled yelp as Red was hit broadside.

As he righted the ship, Keith risked a look behind him observing the blood-covered cuban struggling to stand.

"Lance! Sit down- what are you doing?"

Lance waved him off with a shake of his head. He took a single, shaky step. Then, raising his hands up in mock surrender, collapsed at the edge of the cockpit.

"Are you okay?" Keith panicked, "Lance! Are you-"

Over the comms Hunk was socratically shouting for an update on Lance's condition while Pidge yelled for backup.

"I'm- where am I?"

"Keith! Watch your twenty!"

Instinctively, his hands tightened around the controls barrelling his lion in an easy dodge forcing Lance to hold onto the wall to avoid slipping into the center.

"We're regrouping - the castle is wormholing to pick us up."

With the blast gone, Keith stole another look at Lance. His hair was a mess, sticking up on one side in bloodied spikes- the wound itself trickling down his face. His armor- normally a pristine white- was singed a horrible grey. His left side laced with lacerations.

Unfocused ocean eyes met worried grey. "Lance- are you with me?"

He blinked, his gaze looking somewhat beyond and almost through the pilot's gaze before landing with the precision he was most invaluable for.

"Just hold on, okay?"

He nodded, eyes locked and pleading before suddenly, swiftly they slid shut, his body twitching, limbs shaking as he convulsed.

"The wormhole is open, Keith! You've gotta hurry!"

Keith was screaming, running out of his seat to crouch by his writhing friend.

"Shiro! He's seizing he's-" the air seemed to have been ripped from his lungs as Lance fell limp, eyes sliding shut.

The moment seemed to linger, his own heart silent as the space around them seemed to stagnate.

A loud rattle and stomach flipping lurch pulled air back into Keith's lungs, his legs languid as he stumbled towards his seat.

"It's just me, Keith." Hunk's face was tense as it projected on his screen. Keith nodded numbly returning to the far too shallow breaths of their usually most lively paladin.

* * *

Turns out head wounds are just as tricky in advanced medicine as they are on Earth. And even science can't negate the fast and hard rule of staying awake when receiving any probable concussion.

This unfortunate predicament left Lance laying latent in the med bay, his prone form covered in intricate bandages as Coran did his best to comfort him despite his comatose state.

The Paladins were all pretending to busy themselves, though the silence spoke louder than their actions. A silence broken, however softly, by the pull of athletic tape as Shiro wrapped Hunk's ankle.

A silence that lingered for another twenty minutes as the paladins sat about awaiting any change in their friend's status.

A silence that was finally broken by a small groan and and a renewed beeping from one of the monitors Coran had placed on Lance.

Shiro, for all of his responsible glory, got to the table first giving an apologetic glance towards Pidge who was left to help a hobbling Hunk make his way towards his best friend.

Another groan, this time less airy and more articulate with a punctuation for muffled pain drew the remaining members of Team Voltron to the table as Lance shifted his body to the side only to freeze and flail upwards with a hiss. No doubt, his skin was on fire as the pressure ignited his innumerable wounds.

"Careful, my boy- you got quite a hit on that side." Coran spoke amidst the several other reassurances and sympathetic winces of his friends.

However, instead of melting into the bed at such affirmation, Lance seemed to tense even further, his eyes staring down at the cot he sat up for perhaps several moments too long before timidly looking up into the faces of his teammates.

"Lance, what's wrong?"

Lance scanned the crowd surrounding him, his eyes floating without recognition before landing on the chocolate brown of Hunk's.

"Did something happen?" Lance asked, his expression lost and pleading and directed exclusively towards the Yellow Paladin.

Hunk wasn't sure what to say, his friend looked lost.

"Uh, yeah. You got hit by laser blast mid-battle and sort of passed out a couple times."

Lance nodded his head almost indiscernably, his eyes a calm storm as his eyebrows raised incredulously.

"Yeah. Feels like it." He shifted so that he sat more fully, body relaxing just a hair as he drew his legs up to his chest slowly, hissing as his skin pulled taught in burnt and lacerated agony.

"Hunk?"

The aforementioned looked for quizzical support from the surrounding paladins receiving a myriad of muddled moods. Hunk swallowed and limped closer to Lance, who was scooting away almost imperceptibly.

"Yeah?"

Lance gave a last leery look towards the others before leaning towards Hunk and murmuring, "Where are we?"

"The Castle of Lions."

"Okay, and… is this another simulation? And I failed again or…?"

Realization dawned on Shiro. Hunk, however, was tearing up, his face confused. He sent a frightened look towards Pidge.

"Scenario? Lance we're not-"

"Cadet." Shiro interrupted perhaps too fiercely considering the flinch he received from both parties. With a deep breath, Shiro plowed forwards, "Name and status."

Lance gave a lingering look to Hunk before blinking sharply at Shiro, clearing his throat and declaring, "Lance McClain. Cargo Pilot. Sophomore, sir."

Confused gasps sounded as Lance continued, "Identification 2215200-"

"That's alright, Cadet. At ease."

With a reassuring look towards a near-panicked Hunk, Shiro gestured for Coran and Allura to step away.

"What is going on?" Allura asked with a fierce confusion that Shiro ignored in favor of turning towards Coran.

"Did your scans see anything wrong with his brain? Any swelling or oxygen deprivation or-"

"Ah... no. In fact, the scan showed his brain, while perhaps a bit tender, to be without damage outside of what you have told me to refer to as a minor concussion."

Coran's tone was a forced levity which his hands betrayed by tweaking his mustache in obvious apprehension. "There was a strange cellular structure, however, I figured it was residual energy from the laser blast- as you know most Galra weapons are super-charged ion-"

"What do you mean cellular structure?" Pidge interrupted, seemingly, from nowhere.

"Well the growth was rather more accelerated than is normal for your human readings..."

"You mean his cells are in flux?" Coran seemed to freeze, his hand twirling his mustache painfully. He spared a look over towards Lance who had yet to move from what looked to be a rather uncomfortable position, his body leaning close to Hunk, who stood to his right. It was rather obvious as to why with a clearly conflicted Keith hovering on the left side, eyes flicking from Hunk and Lance to the huddle of the others a couple feet away.

Allura looked upon the scene intently.

"Yes, something like that." Coran replied, hands forced behind his back in an attempt to calm himself.

"The weapon… it was energy-based. When the resistance gave us the information there wasn't much on it's use but it was rumored to be an equalizer to the Altean wormholing. And with Haggar's persistent desire for quintessence…"

"What are you saying, Pidge?" Shiro asked, his tone sharp with worry. Pidge took a deep breathe, adjusting her glasses before looking directly into his grey gaze.

"It might be possible that Lance was forced to age backwards."

Coran's expression pinched, his eyebrows drawing together tightly. He exchanged an odd look with Allura, who stared at Lance fearfully before looking determinately at Coran.

"Run whatever tests you can, Coran. Pidge?"

"Yes Princess?"

"Pull up every file you have on this weapon."

* * *

 ** _A/N: I know I have a mixed history with updating but if you comment I'll do my best! Also, you might enjoy my work on tumblr that I post at random as well! Check it out here: blog/littlewheatart_**

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 ** _And hey, thanks for reading._**


	2. Chapter 2

It is interesting, when reflecting upon the jagged journeys that lead us to where we are today, how things change so drastically yet remain very much the same. Three years might not be a long time for those who have lived monotonously with a year being yesterday and tomorrow yet another year. However, there are changes that occur, shifts that are subtle but necessary. They provide a structure of strengthening character, maturity and an increased depth.

It's unnoticeable in day-by-day life.

It's something people might notice, only, upon reflection.

And it's something so intrinsically human - it's almost necessary that people not notice. Because when it's suddenly rebooted? It's a hollow sort of happening.

"We're in space?" Lance's voice crack in the middle adding to a quickly quadrupling list of things affirming what Pidge and Shiro had hastily hypothesized to be true.

Lance was every bit an eighteen year-old again.

"Yeah, buddy. We got abducted by your lion and launched through a wormhole into this castle and…" Hunk paused, his expression tightening as he saw the look of concentration on Lance's face.

And oh, he did look younger. There weren't the subtle bags under his eyes and that barely-there scar from the bomb blast? Not decorating his left cheek.

Most shockingly, perhaps, was how openly upset he looked.

After three years of fighting a space war everyone had hardened - even just a bit. Lance was still the most expressive but… this sort of raw emotion? It was laced with an innocence that was lost to the past Lance.

Hunk had every intent to barge onward in his retelling but was interrupted by the piercing eyes of his best friend.

"Hunk? How long have we been in space?"

"Almost three years."

He looked confused, eyebrows knitting together.

"It feels longer…"

Here's the thing about being human. People say things all the time. Communication is both a favorite thing and a constant thing- so much so that it's almost white noise. But there is a weight to words. It might not hold up in court where evidence must be physical or at least made physical, but hunches are not always anxiety. Sometimes they're more truthful than what is right before your eyes.

There's a dark static in those words. A weight of mysterious, void-filled knowledge. The sort of knowledge one might have in a dream- where things don't make sense but you know more than you should. There's an almost predictive air of clairvoyant clarity. The hazy fog of an ocean that is right there but the surface of which not even the scientists who study it understand.

De ja vu at it's finest.

What Lance says, his cadence and his conviction is far too deep for a sophomore in a military college. Something has shifted and it isn't just his appearance.

It is this hunch that makes Hunk hold his hands still, his gaze lifting up to the navy orbs staring just left of his own.

"Longer how?" He asks. Stringent. Steady.

Suddenly Lance's face, previously staring in stoney silence, comes alive his eyes widening and head whipping rightward towards a wall. A whispered, "they're here" is all Lance says before he's dragging Hunk up and out of he room.

A room that shakes as the wall- that very wall Lance had looked at- implodes with enemy fire.

Alarms blaring perhaps a second too-late.

The doors leading into the room begin to close- a contingency wired into the castle so oxygen and people aren't sucked into the void should the room become suddenly more spacious.

A contingency which worked actively against the two paladins who, mere inches from the frame, began to be sucked into the vacuum.

They were locked off from the castle. And they were fast-approaching the abyss.


End file.
